Courses > Courses for Teaching Professionals

Click any title below to view a complete course description including a syllabus, instructor biography, prerequisites, and requirements.

Solving Classroom Discipline Problems
Instructor: James Thompson

Why do some teachers enjoy peaceful, orderly classrooms while other teachers face daily discipline battles? The answer is that many teachers have not been taught the secrets to solving discipline problems. This course reveals those secrets and presents a step-by-step approach to effective, positive classroom discipline. Teachers continually rate this course one of the most valuable they have ever taken.

Ready, Set, Read!
Instructor: Kt Paxton

Learn what the newest research says about how children really learn to read and write and become a powerful guide to literacy development when you work with young children. Gain confidence in your ability to guide a child's literacy development, and take pleasure in seeing how even the littlest events can be really big steps in reading and writing success.

Teaching Science: Grades 4-6
Instructor: Holly Trimble

Ready to maximize your abilities in teaching science? You'll learn about foundational content in physical, life, and earth science, and ways to teach that content to your students. Discover specific teaching methods and science process skills, and learn how to improve the emotional climate in your classroom. Lots of examples and worksheets you can use in your own classroom are included. There's a big emphasis on the scientific method, and there's even an entire lesson devoted to science fairs!

The Creative Classroom
Instructor: Robin Sellers

Creativity will abound in your classroom as you tap into your students' hidden talents. Learn creative new approaches to learning labs, activities, exercises, assignments, field trips, and evaluation methods. Think beyond the textbook and challenge your students by making your classroom a creative classroom!

Differentiated Instruction in the Classroom
Instructor: Tracey Birch

Differentiated instruction (DI) is becoming a mainstay in classrooms across the country as educators are starting to see the ways that the traditional classroom setting limits their ability to reach diverse learners. Join us on this journey through 10 practical DI integration strategies! Count on at least three sample integration lessons on each strategy, and just think of all the ways that you can apply them to improve learning outcomes for your students.

Integrating Technology in the Classroom
Instructor: Robin Sellers

In this professional development course for teachers, you'll learn the secrets of technology integration in the classroom, gaining the skills educators need to use tools such as wikis, podcasts, and blogs effectively. You'll discover simple ways to integrate technology to enhance your subject material and meet your course goals. We'll explore quick-and-easy, standards-based solutions for more interactive lesson plans, exciting WebQuests, and challenging assignments. We'll also unleash the power of Web resources, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Together, we'll look at basic integration, subject-specific activities, and smart ways to make your integration seamless.

Using the Internet in the Classroom
Instructor: Robin Sellers

Harness the power of the Internet to make your textbooks and lessons come alive! Teach your students how to locate and evaluate Internet resources. Improve the caliber and amount of discussion through the use of e-mail and discussion boards. The Internet can make teaching easier--this course will show you how.

Speed Spanish
Instructor: Dan Mikels

This powerful course teaches six easy recipes you can use to glue Spanish words together into sentences. With the powerful methods taught in this course, you'll be able to engage in conversational Spanish in no time. ¡Qué Bueno!

Creating Web Pages
Instructor: Craig Power

Learn how to design, create, and post your very own site on the Internet's World Wide Web. Discover low-cost marketing techniques and search engine strategies.

Leadership
Instructor: Lynne Morton

Leadership skills can help you gain the respect and admiration of others, while also allowing you to enjoy success in your career and more control over your destiny. Contrary to popular belief, leadership skills can be learned and developed. Even if you don't hold a leadership position, this course will teach you how to use the principles of great leaders to achieve success in almost every aspect of your daily life.

A to Z Grant Writing
Instructor: Linda Vallejo

A to Z Grant Writing is an invigorating and informative course that will equip you with the skills and tools you need to enter the exciting field of grant writing! You'll learn how to raise needed funds by discovering how and where to look for potential funders who are a good match for your organization. You'll also learn how to network and develop true partnerships with a variety of funders, how to organize a successful grant writing campaign, and how to put together a complete proposal package.

Enhancing Language Development in Childhood
Instructor: Kt Paxton

Follow your child's lead and have fun while enhancing language development! In this fun and user-friendly course for parents, teachers, and caregivers, you will discover how children learn to process language and how they become proficient speakers and thinkers. This course will help you enrich your child's life by stimulating his or her continued speech, brain, and language development in an enjoyable, age-appropriate, and natural way.

Understanding Adolescents
Instructor: Sonya Jodoin

To know your kids is to love them. In this course, an experienced social worker will help you gain a deep understanding and appreciation of your adolescent's development and behavior. You'll uncover the secrets of the adolescent mind and gain valuable information on how they think, how they feel, how their identities develop, and what steps you can take to ensure that you are well prepared to meet the needs of the teens in your life.

Guiding Kids on the Internet
Instructor: Christine Gee and Katherine Emmons

Work the Web with your kids! This essential course for teachers, leaders, and parents will give you the confidence you need for helping children get the best from the Internet.

Working Successfully With Learning Disabled Students
Instructor: Sara Hardin

Learn how to successfully meet the diverse needs of the learning disabled students in your classroom from an experienced special educator. We'll dissect the whole special education process, from working with individualized education programs (IEPs) to helping students struggling with reading comprehension, math skills, and writing. Empower yourself by discovering easy, practical, and creative strategies that you can use to help your struggling students to find their light bulb moments!

Solving Classroom Discipline Problems II
Instructor: James Thompson

In this professional development course, you'll get the teacher training you need to deal effectively with serious discipline problems and help even the most challenging students you're teaching make more responsible choices. You'll learn how to use a new research-based six-step approach to solve severe and chronic discipline problems such as bullying, fighting, using abusive language, stealing, and refusing to work. We'll look at numerous real-life examples set in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms so you can see how to put the ideas into action in your own teaching situation.

Creating the Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Success
Instructor: Ellen Arnold

In this professional development course for teachers, you'll get the training you need to reach the diverse mix of students you face every day—learning proven strategies that turn diversity into opportunity. With students who have learning disabilities, neurobiological disorders, and physical challenges, the modern classroom requires an efficient and effective teacher who can prioritize under tight deadlines and be creative on demand. Learn how to be the kind of super teacher who can guide every student toward academic success.

Singapore Math Strategies: Model Drawing for Grades 1-6
Instructor: Anni Stipek

In this professional development course for teachers, you'll get the training you need to start teaching model drawing, the powerful Singapore Math strategy that gives word problems a visual context. As a teacher, you know that many students groan when it's time to solve word problems. Why is that? Are the problems too difficult? Do students get lost trying to decipher the wording or figure out the computation? Do they simply not know which strategy to use? Actually, it's a combination of all these issues. Luckily, model drawing, a Singapore Math strategy for working word problems, will help your students start to enjoy math in a way they may never have before.

Teaching Writing: Grades 4-6
Instructor: Melanie Park

In this teacher-training course, you'll learn from an experienced educator how to motivate and assist developing writers. You'll master strategies for teaching the writing process and find out how to develop engaging lessons for different writing applications. We'll explore the benefits of writing across the curriculum, examine ways to organize your writing instruction, and uncover the secrets of effective assessment.

Teaching Students With Autism: Strategies for Success
Instructor: Ellen Arnold

Just 20 years ago, we didn't see students with autism in our classrooms. But today, we teach children with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome right alongside their neurotypical peers. Reaching and teaching these students requires a delicate balancing act: understanding how their brains are wired, helping them turn challenges into opportunities, and learning to enjoy the rich perspective they bring to the classroom.

Response to Intervention: Reading Strategies That Work
Instructor: Wendell Christensen

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be proactive in helping our struggling readers? Well, we can! In this six-week course, you'll learn response to intervention (RTI) strategies that ensure the struggling readers in your classroom get the help and education they need. RTI gives us a strategic plan to bring tiered interventions to our students, at their reading level and with their unique challenges in mind. Helping them with phonics, fluency, vocabulary mastery, comprehension, and writing, these intervention strategies tackle the toughest literacy problems with flexibility and creativity.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 in the Classroom
Instructor: Tracy Loffer

In this course for teachers, you'll learn how to motivate students and enrich lessons by bringing Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 into your classroom. You'll master a variety of uses for this MS Office program and come away able to develop lessons and presentations filled with text, graphics, sound, and video. You'll be able to use PowerPoint templates or create your own dynamic presentations that will increase interest in any subject you teach!

Creating a Classroom Web Site
Instructor: Robin Sellers

Learn how to create a classroom Web site in this fun, easy-to-understand course for teachers. In no time, you'll build a site with text, images, animations, tables, links, and more. Then you'll create a WebQuest and a blog to add to your site. You'll do all this and more as you discover how simple creating a classroom Web site can be and how having one can make you a more effective and dynamic teacher.

Easy Classroom Podcasting
Instructor: Lori Elliott

Have you ever felt like you just can't reach your students? They speak the language of technology while you speak the language of, well, teachers. But what if there was a bridge between the two? In this professional training course for teachers, you'll learn how to make a podcast that creates a memorable learning experience for your students. You'll find their interest reignited when you start using their favorite formats: audio, images, and video. You won't even need an iPod or a big budget to harness the power of podcasting in your classroom.